NC or Conquest?

A

Andy06r

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This is a dilemma that often happens in my games, especially if I go liberty and Im looking for advice.

You are scouting and find that an enemy capital is quite close to you. You forward settle towards them. You have a decision to make. Do you go for the NC and let the capitals strength increase, or do you divert your tech and kill them with a late ancient/early classical army.

Perhaps I'm not good enough (Emperor), but this is around the time where my opening build order is wrapped up and I'm ready for Libraries *or* soldiers. And since I'm in a war footing, I may as well tech to iron working and catapults.

Point is - This forum likes to recommend the NC, for good reason. But sometimes bagging that capital and getting hegemony on a neighbors land is the best move.

What do you do?
 
The NC almost always unless the rival civ planted a second city someplace inconvenient. The diplomacy hit for conquering a civ with only one city is so harsh in BNW that IMO it just isn't worth trying to take the capital until later. Harass them, or peck at the city until they are willing to gift you a city? Maybe. But I never actually just take it, until much later in the game when stronger allegiances are drawn.

In G&K snatching that city was worth it, though.
 
NC first. You can always conquer later.
 
So nations like Persia, Celts, Germany, Rome, Egypt, Huns, Greece...

Anyone with the ability to bag a capital in the late ancient/early classical is gimped.

That's really too bad. Is anyone willing to bag an early capital as their third city or is it really that poor of a play?
 
Andy06r said:
So nations like Persia, Celts, Germany, Rome, Egypt, Huns, Greece...

Anyone with the ability to bag a capital in the late ancient/early classical is gimped.

That's really too bad. Is anyone willing to bag an early capital as their third city or is it really that poor of a play?
Click to expand...


Pretty much it is always a bad play until you have some relationship with the other civs. And going wide in general in BNW has so many negatives associated with it that you need a real reason to do it.

BNW really skewed the balance on this particular issue. Note that you can still go to war early and the early units aren't entirely useless, you just probably don't want to use them to capture any cities. Really, except for in multiplayer (and even then arguably) most early units just aren't very useful anyway. Funnily enough the ones that cost resources, like most horse units and most swordsmen, which theoretically should form the backbone of most invading armies, are still suboptimal compared to archery units, and siege units in general are pretty terrible prior to cannons. But the real issue is the diplomacy hit. There's still some hope that a new patch could make things better, but it would have to be a pretty major change.
 
Conquering an enemy capitol at this point will result in permanent war with all other civs from some later point of the game (not immiediately, since they need to build armies and establish friendly relations with each other). But you will be marked forever as a warmongoer and a target of coalitions. So if you don't want to lead wars on multiple fronts go for the NC. That is the game mechanics in BNW and one city you get in exchange is just not worth it.
 
Andy06r said:
Perhaps I'm not good enough (Emperor), but this is around the time where my opening build order is wrapped up and I'm ready for Libraries *or* soldiers. And since I'm in a war footing, I may as well tech to iron working and catapults.
Click to expand...

You can do it, it is totally viable to go to war before NC. Going for NC first is better, but going to war first is possible and not THAT bad. But one thing is that maybe you need to refine your war tactics. Catapults have a very limited time frame for viability because they die too easy. Composite Bowman can take a stronger hit from a city, so it is possible to do a CB rush after NC and it will still be quite early. If you want to go to war REAL early, like turn 40 on standard speed, you should consider Chariot Archers. They are fragile as well, so this must be before city defense reaches 15, but they come much earlier and cheaper than Catapults, making your detour from NC not a big deal.
 
Go for war. NCcan wait T100 on Emperor. Weaknesses close AI is a good way to win.
Diplomatic hurts is not really important when trade are done before war for 30 turns and it doesn't change gold by caravans. You can also have DoF. It doesn't always avoid denunciation, but DoW yes.
Beware to not steal a worker from CS before going war with an AI. In this case, global DoW is pretty sure.
A catapult help a lot, CB tend to be slow if AI build a wall quickly after DoF. Use scouts and warrior as cannon fodder. And sometimes a worker to divert AI archer or CB who shoots your troops from its capital.
 
While NC is always a good strategy, if you are somehow isolated from some other civs (on continents, small continents, archipelago, etc.) then you can eliminate your neighbors without any warmonger penalty IF you kill them off before you meet the other civs. So going up the military tech tree is viable in certain circumstances.
 
If you haven't met anyone yet you can warmonger all you like. If you have then I find you can get away with capturing 1 city, and only 1 city. After that denounce your foe and see if others join in the denouncement, it may take several years for this to happen so work on your diplomacy with the other civs. If you can get your foe hated then allies will come easily.
 
The only real way I have been able to make this work is to:

1. Declare War on Civ A, who should have at least 2 cities (capital and a satellite)
2. Eliminate all the Civ A's units
3. Bribe Civ B into attacking Civ A, which they are more likely to do if it has no units
4. Hope Civ B makes the mistake of taking Civ A's cities, knocking it out of the game
5. Declare on Civ B, who should now be hated the world over
6. Liberate the weakest city Civ B took (resurrecting Civ A) and keep the capital

This doesn't always quite work out but you get the idea.
 
I think NC or peaceful expansion is usually better, but there are definitely situations where taking a capital (and maybe an expansion) are beneficial.

Basically, if you get a high production, high food capital and a really close neighbor. I definitely consider pumping composites and spears ESPECIALLY if I haven't met anybody else. You don't get diplo hits if nobody else has met you or them. So, if you roll a start where you get just one other civ on your continent, I would definitely recommend it. In this situation, knocking out your rival takes all the pressure off of the land grab. You can settle at your own pace without worry of those nice city locations being taken up.
 
NC almost always.
When is war better? When your playing as Assyria and you know they have a tech you don't have. Even then its a tough call because early on they have not built a wonder yet have they? One of the big pluses to warring is that you get the wonders built for you.

Another thing: If you planning on Clearing your continents before anyone knows about your war-mongering ways, then snap to it!

Another thing: if that nearby Capitol is the Zulus, you may want them gone or severely crippled before the Impi start appearing.

otherwise, NC.
 
I war instead of NC very regularly, on immortal, and not just as Assyria. I'm here to tell you, it works. And it's not so much not getting NC at all as it is a matter of ordering. Also that it doesn't matter as much when you have puppets.
 
Are people overestimating the harm of warmongering? I find if you bribe AIs to DoW each other then you can turn bring the whole world into a darkage. Sure the AIs might hate you but they'll hate each other as well. And there are multiple ways to improve diplomatic relations.
 
Redaxe said:
Are people overestimating the harm of warmongering?...
Click to expand...

Nope :)

its still manageable afterwards, but life is always easier if your not the first to draw blood. It gets worse when you capture a city, worse for a capitol, worse for total elimination.

of course, if war is your plan from day 1, then you will still do fine with an early war. you just need to plan for it.
 
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